Tokyo Friendfinder
The idea of a far-distant future where we can upload our very essence to some digital repository in the ether is both compelling and repulsive in equal measure, but a less sci-fi alternative may be closer than we think.
According to New Scientist, chatbots – the online programs that attempt to mimic human conversation – could soon learn to talk like us so well that they may as well be us.
Existing services like MyCyberTwin are capable of taking information from a personality questionnaire and using it to masquerade as a real human in text chats on services like MSN Messenger.
MyCyberTwin uses 79 questions, which may seem like a lot, to get to the core of what makes each person tick, but there are chatbots in development that use many more – 20,000 in the case of this one you can download to keep you busy on these cold winter nights.
Better still, future chatbots could take years of written records of conversations we’ve had – whether in chat or email – and analyze the lot to extract a synthetic version of the way we communicate. Once that happens, would there be any real difference between the imposters and us?
(Crossposted to Tech.co.uk)
01:33 AM 
J Mark Lytle •
Permalink
Internet | Off Topic | R&D | Software 
Tagged with:
chatbots
fake
Read current comments | Add your comment | Send to a friend | Get more gadget goodness from DWT
Support DWT and share the love:
Slashdot It! Or use the bookmarks below :-)
Or try our acclaimed members-only dating site:
Or get your hump on with all new USB Humping Dogs — on sale now!
Next entry: Remote workers rejoice as VPN gets speed bump
Previous entry: Extreme close-up: Sony Alpha A200 dissected + DSLR tips a-go-go
Related entries:- Japan aims to exploit sea-bed methane, end life as we know it
- Japanese salty dogs watch fish prices online to get best prices
- Iron Man, Hancock, Dark Knight … Retarder Elf?
- We Heart Tokyo friend finder bigger and better than ever
- Sony company to mass-produce FED displays
- Video: The grabbing (robot) hands grab all they can…
- Video: Panasonic’s giant surface computer in action
- Gorgeous Japanese kids’ dinner set hewn from bamboo
Reader Comments
C'mon - let's hear it...
blog comments powered by Disqus-
...Put your “Ghost in to the shell”
Posted by Shoovi on 08/02/07 at 03:23 AM -
I hope they could improve this so that we can use it in desktops for context sensitive commands. Just imagine saying to your computer “Look for the latest videos of (insert whoever artist here
) download and shutdown after you finish.” Or if you really have nothing to do you could chat with your computer. That would be cool.
Posted by Stevie J on 08/02/09 at 04:52 AM